When Garth Brooks performed “Shout!” an inauguration party earlier this year, you can literally see the sound traveling through the crowd as the audience throws their arms up when they here the word “shout.” This isn’t a prank, but I thought it was a super cool video, and maybe someone can think of a way to use this in a prank?
6 thoughts on “Seeing Sound Waves”
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SCIENCE!!!
Cool! except for a venue that large wouldn’t they have multiple sets of speakers? (And they do–I saw them on the video.) In which case the the sound would traveling through cables which is much faster than traveling through air…
Maybe they’re just doing the wave…
Nope. Not the wave. I was there. I was wayyyyyy back by the Washington Monument, and I can attest to the fact that although there were many sets of speakers, it was clear we were hearing the concert at a delay. We could see it on a few different Jumbotrons, too, and the video on some was ahead of what we could hear in real life. I totally thought about this very phenomena as I was gleefully throwing my hands in the air during “Shout,” and I’m tickled to see proof of it. (This is the “We Are One” Inaugural Concert, by the way – the one they showed free on HBO.)
Kaleena, read the article at the link. Sound designers actually set the speakers up to have a delay that matches the sound coming from the stage so the people in the back don’t hear an echo.
@Kaleena–It looks like rfl717 beat me to it, but I do explain exactly what you are talking about on my web entry where I posted the video, you can see it here at:
http://www.controlgeek.net/blog/2009/1/21/seeing-sound-waves.html
Yeah–thanks rfl717 and John Huntington. I look at your article right after I posted, but didn’t get a chance re-comment (until now)
How cool! I had no idea that the sound was delayed for the peops in the back. Thanks for teaching me something cool!